The fourth Peanuts special, You’re in Love Charlie Brown, gets surprising little airplay nowadays despite being one of Charles Schulz’s most beloved storylines. It’s one of the finest of the Peanuts half-hours, chock full of charm, humor and heartache, almost all culled from classic comic strips.

From this special we were first introduced to the “voice” of Charlie Brown’s teacher (presumably Miss Othmar), the “wah-wah’s” likely supplied by trombonist Chuck Bennett, who was a member of Vince Guaraldi’s ensemble in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. This voice eventually became an iconic way to render such characters, though adult voice actors did perform in the feature Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown and the This is America, Charlie Brown limited series.

This is the second special to contain an original song. “You’re in Love, Charlie Brown” is usually included as an instrumental on Peanuts musical compilations, but this is the only recording that presents the a capella version complete with “nyah-nyah” lyrics that, to paraphrase Charlie Brown, “just lie in your stomach and burn.”

The special epitomizes the Peanuts structure of early ’60s. Making her TV debut is Peppermint Patty, who with Snoopy would eventually put Charlie Brown in the position of an “anchor” character with Lucy and Linus in supporting roles. Also introduced are Charlie Brown’s visual torment by giant animated “HA-HA’s.” These elements of witty hyperbole would resurface in successive Peanuts projects that would never themselves achieve the same level of sly freshness.

Very little of the soundtrack was altered for the album, except for additional recorded material produced in 1978 (first released in the read-along below) required to explain action that cannot be seen. Though several 7-inch LP and cassette read-along Charlie Brown recordings were released after this title, this is the final 12-inch LP in the series. History-making Disneyland Records producer Jymn Magon (whose Grammy nominations included his work on Charlie Brown Records) recalled his experiences working on the series:

“I met Charles Schulz at his office in Santa Rosa, and I spoke to him on the phone a couple times. On August 22 (of 1980-something), I called to wish him a Happy Birthday for Peppermint Patty, and he chuckled, “I’d forgotten that!”

“There was much more contact with Warren Lockhart (president of Charles Schulz Creative Associates, managing the marketing and distribution of Peanuts merchandise worldwide with United Features Syndicate). He died six years ago.

“Good ol’ Charlie Brown… er, Schulz. When he died, he took the Peanuts gang with him. Nice man. He liked to write his own gags. Warren told me that one day on a golf course, he (Warren) cracked a joke about Charlie Brown. Schulz was pleasantly chagrined. “Dang. That’s good. I wish I could use it, but I didn’t come up with it.”

Although this is a condensed version of the special–omitting some gags and Peppermint Patty’s matchmaking sequence—the book-and-recording was produced and distributed several months before the LP record. And unlike the long-player, it was not the last title in the series.

Charles Schulz was the only person who ever wrote or drew the Peanuts comic strip. To this day, the strip that appears in newspapers is still sourced from his previous work. Schulz established specific, unbreakable rules for the strip, including that the Great Pumpkin did not really exist; Charlie Brown would never kick the football when Lucy offered to hold it for him; and that we would never see the little red-haired girl as her appearance was better left to our imaginations.

Charles M. Schulz

Schulz remained true to these and other caveats within his comic strip as the true canon. Anything to do with the characters outside those little newspaper squares were up for discussion and whimsical speculation, even if it moved outside with the strip’s “realities.”

That’s what happened in the 16th CBS TV special, 1977’s It’s Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown. The network and sponsors must have been concerned with the dwindling supply of holiday upon which to base new Peanuts specials, since the special that preceeded It’s Your First Kiss was It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown. Premises from the comics were still viable, but not as plentiful as in the past. The marketing for the 1977 feature film Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown even boasted that it was not based on any other Peanuts story or comic strip.

Revealing the visual identity—and the name—of the little red-haired girl was also a pure prime time attention-getting device in a television age of stunts, gimmicks and “very special episodes.” Though Schulz wrote the special, he had no input as to the look nor the name—Heather—of this landmark character.

The story had to have painted Schulz into a corner. Charlie Brown is placed in several contradictory positions. Throughout the story he is both a loser and a winner but never really true to form either way. He has a key position in a “big” football game; is for some reason assigned to dance with and kiss the homecoming queen; and according to Linus, becomes the life of the party (doing “the hustle, the bump and chicken and all those other new dances”). At the same time, he is publicly disgraced during the game by Lucy’s antics with the football—while it is painfully obvious even to small children that the losses are her fault. His triumph at the party (which seems out of character and off screen perhaps for that reason), is ultimately–and inexplicably—erased from his memory.

The football game was so frustrating for home viewers, some wrote letters, resulting in alterations to the broadcast soundtrack to mute Peppermint Patty’s insults. On the read-along however, her “Chuck, you can’t do anything right!” line can be heard. This may have been the one time in which viewers felt more like Charlie Brown than he did.

GIVE A LITTLE LISTEN

“It’s Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown” Read Along

This was the first TV special without a Vince Guaraldi score, as he had passed away the previous year. It was scored by Ed Bogas and Judy Munsen, who had just done the same for the Race for Your Life feature. Bogas later composed the music for the entire Garfield and Friends series.

9 Comments

In terms of sheer depression and heartache, Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown contains stronger themes that highlight “the true meaning of Valentine’s Day, Charlie Brown (especially ol’ Chuck settling at the end with a used Valentine to make himself feel better), so that probably explains why that one gets more air- time: it’s simply pure Schulz ..

Yeah, I heard “First Kiss” got CBS plenty of angry letters over Chuck’s football fiasco, leading them to backmask the kids’ insults (“You can’t do anything right!”) for reruns. I wonder how the controversy would have went had the Internet been around then.

“You’re In Love, Charlie Brown” has always been my favorite of the Charlie Brown specials. The music, the bittersweet nature of the plot, and the classic gags from the strip (“you tied your peanut butter sandwich in a knot”, “not only that, you sharpened your ballpoint pen!”) all gelled into the perfect episode. It really is a shame that it is virtually forgotten today. I personally think the last good special was “He’s Your Dog, Charlie Brown”, and it was a long downhill slide after that, and I really hate “Its Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown” – the fun of the Little Red Haired Girl character was that we never saw her!

FIRST KISS is one of my least favorite Peanuts specials, in part because of its betrayal of one of the strip’s central rules, that Charlie Brown’s beloved Little Red Haired Girl remain strictly an off-stage character, the source of the spell she weaves over Charlie Brown best left to the audience’s imagination. Also, the unceasing abuse Charlie Brown is subjected to by his alleged “friends” really gets out of hand here. The football game losses are so clearly Lucy’s fault that it’s impossible to find any justification other than out-and-out meanness for the way he’s treated here by the other kids. Not to mention the insanity of making Lucy placekick setter, in the first place.

In the book CHARLES M. SCHULZ: CONVERSATIONS, Schulz talked about his regret over the IT’S YOUR FIRST KISS, CHARLIE BROWN special. He said, “You have to do things that attract some kind of attention, and it’s no doubt that that was one of these stupid stories we never should have done.”

If you read that book CONVERSATIONS, you get the definite impression that Schulz didn’t much care for those later specials and wasn’t much interested in them. He comes across as regarding them more as an annual obligation than as something he enjoyed doing. He talks about how “they” (the network and sponsors) stopped being interested in simple stories drawn from the Peanuts newspaper strip. They wanted gimmicky stories that Schulz felt sometimes had little to do with the world he had created in the strip. The one exception to his lack of interest in the later specials was a live-action/animation blend titled IT’S THE GIRL IN THE RED TRUCK, CHARLIE BROWN, for which Schulz had high hopes. Unfortunately, it aired not long after WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT premiered in theaters and suffered very badly by comparison.

JP

February 15, 2018 4:31:52 am

They’ve since depicted the Little Red-Haired Girl in other specials including Happy New Year, Charlie Brown! and 2002’s A Charlie Brown Valentine (where she has a much different hairstyle). I believe she’s also briefly seen in The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show as well as Snoopy!!! The Musical.

In The Peanuts Movie (2015), of course, she speaks for the first time. And through some clues in the movie, we see her full name is “Heather Wold” (a reference to her real life inspiration, Donna Mae Johnson Wold).

To me, the ending of The Peanuts Movie felt inspired by You’re in Love, Charlie Brown’s ending. I’ve come to really like it, despite breaking (or maybe “bending”) some of Schulz’s rules he had established in the original strip.

THe Little Red Haired girl may be a cute design and name (agreed, and I just love the name Heather) but…..SHE SHOULD BE UNNAMED…and offstage, stage left! (So we can imagine her and make up names for her.) Indeed, as JP right above said: Donna Wold was the inspiration for Heather’s name and character even before the name, right from the start.:) PS I saw the 1967 one when aired, and I’d just gotten out of bed in the evening at 6-1/2 years old.

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ABOUT GREG EHRBAR

GREG EHRBAR is a freelance writer/producer for television, advertising, books, theme parks and stage. Greg has worked on content for such studios as Disney, Warner and Universal, with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. His numerous books include Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records (with Tim Hollis). Visit gregehrbar.com for more.